July 22, 2016
Dear Everyone:
Haven’t said a lot about ARMA lately.
That’s because not a lot has been happening.
At the Mt Diablo Chapter, which covers the
San Francisco East
Bay, we tried, we really tried.
We kept inviting people to come to monthly meetings to network
with other Records and Information Management (RIM) professionals and to
learn about useful stuff from knowledgeable sources.
And (almost) no one showed up.
A few people signed up each time, but not enough to make it
cost-effective. After a
while, we just threw up our hands.
Nevertheless, the Chapter By-Laws state that the Board of Directors will
meet at least three times per year.
Normally, that isn’t a problem; we would just have a brief
meeting after the general Chapter Meeting each month and cover the usual
bases: Treasury, Membership,
upcoming Programs, what to order for dinner at the next meeting.
Normally, the fiscal year runs from July through the following June.
We had an Annual Planning Meeting last August, to plan the coming
year, which as we all know, went up like a lead balloon.
But that still counts as a Board meeting.
And we had one last January, when we were floundering and
desperately looking for something to get us back “on track”.
So we really only needed one more meeting to stay in compliance
with the By-Laws.
Technically, our last meeting was this week, but it’s not like the ARMA
police are going to come pounding on the door because we were a little
bit late. And by this time,
there were only three of us left on the Board:
President (me), Treasurer (“Kate”) and Secretary (“Natasha”.)
So we met at “Natasha’s” office and ran through the Agenda in
record time. We only had the
meeting room for about a half-hour.
And what happened to “Godfrey”, our Vice President?
He had come to our rescue last year when our intended Vice
President had suddenly chosen to resign.
“Godfrey” had served on the Board many, many years ago, so he
knew what he was letting himself in for.
The previous time, “Godfrey” told us the reason he was leaving
the Board, and possibly ARMA altogether, was because of a health issue.
So I wasn’t totally shocked back in January when “Godfrey” didn’t show
up for that Board meeting. Or
when several emails to him went unanswered.
Or when I received a notice that his membership was about to
expire. Or a month later
when he no longer appeared in the Member Directory.
Sadly, “Godfrey” has apparently fallen down the rabbit hole again
and we do wish him the very best.
Maybe he’ll pop up again in a few months.
In the meantime, our Chapter is busily going nowhere.
“Natasha” suggested that, before we have yet another Annual
Planning Meeting, that we try calling all the members to find out what
they really think they want.
We did send out an electronic survey last year.
Exactly three people actually responded.
Out of three dozen.
We agreed to divide the members up into three groups.
Each of us will call one of the groups and ask the Eternal
Question: “What do you want?”
But we’re going to wait until after next weekend’s combined
Great
Northwest and Pacific Region Leadership Conference to do it.
After all, it might be helpful to find out what other Chapters
are doing about this problem.
I have spoken with other Chapter Presidents and attended Meetings of
other Chapters (there are four in Northern California, including
Sacramento.) They all have
been experiencing diminished attendance, to a lesser degree than the Mt
Diablo Chapter.
Speaking of the combined Regional Leadership Conference, this year’s
event will take place in
Reno, Nevada next weekend.
At first I thought, “No way!”
But then I found out that Reno is only about a three-hour drive
from the Bay Area. And
“Kate” also plans to attend, so I’ll be going as well.
After all, the Chapter will be paying for the Registration and
hotel and who knows? We
might hear something helpful.
Consequently, there will be no Letter next week.
Love, as always,
Pete
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